Thief Rivalry
by Crazy Pink
Summary: For years, Rouge had been hunting down a particular gem but to no avail. One day, she heard a word from an old acquaintance that he may have some information, which she might have an interest in, one that would lead Rouge to a road of self-discovery.
1. Setup

Author's note: Call this an alternate universe. There would be a lot of elements used in this story that does not exist in the games, nor in any other of the Sonic continuities. Yet, this would be close enough to tie in with the things already seen in the game storyline. Note that this story will be heavily dependent on these two main games, Sonic 3 and Knuckles and Sonic Adventure. I have always thought that the origin of the Echidna tribe was intriguing. Yet, it needs a little more depth. Some exploration on this back story would be interesting. Some elements from other continuities, mainly Archie and Fleetway would be used as well, but not as much. Timeline to this is about a month and a half after Sonic Adventure but just before Sonic Adventure 2.

Disclaimer: Sonic and co belongs to SEGA/ Sonic Team.

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**Thief Rivals**

By The Enormous Orange

Timeline: Somewhere between SA1 and SA2

Universe: Alternate SEGASonic

**PROLOGUE**

SET-UP

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"He wants to see you, Miss."

"Really?"

Crossing her arms, she stayed in the shadows, standing in a safe distance away from him - a brief silence crept between them. Their eyes met but each of them suspected something from the other.

"You don't need to hide yourself, you know," he teased, a soft light from a lamp post nearby touched his white feathers, casting an unspoken eeriness in him as he gave her an intimidating grin in his beak. "There is no one else here." Rough, that was the best word she could find to describe his voice.

"I prefer to take proper precautions."

The only response he gave her was an unsympathetic shrug. He turned around and showed her his empty hands. "See, no weapons." Yet, this did not convince her to confront him under the light.

"What about the rest of your men watching us here? They don't need to hide themselves. I know they're here."

"Let me assure you, we are the only Mobians standing in this dark alleyway."

Persistent, was not he? "Regardless, I am not going. Tell that weasel I want nothing more to do with him."

He turned his gaze back on her and said, "Miss Rouge, you're making my job difficult. I am just his henchman."

The situation seemed laughable. "I am through with him. You're just wasting your time." This was enough. She angrily spun around and stomped deeper into the shadows.

"Don't you want to know more about the emeralds?"

The mere mention of the emeralds caught her attention. "Emeralds?" she quickly turned her gaze back on the albatross. "What do you know about the emeralds?"

"They are fine gems, aren't they?" the albatross said, grinning. "Rare stones, but immeasurable power surrounds them, particularly…"

"The Master Emerald," she finished. She had spent years tracking on the large gem. There used to be a great phenomenon surrounding this emerald when it was first heard in the public. There were many legends describing this mystical stone. Its power. The wars that it brought to its people in ancient times. The God of Destruction that was famously described as the living god who lived in this great gem. Many had given up their jobs to dedicate their lives in finding this great legend. Yet, little evidences had been found to support the existence of the Master Emerald, resulting in the majority of the treasure hunters giving up their missions to find it. However, Rouge had not given up in her little hunt. It had been years since she heard of the great gem again. This resulted in her being interested on how the albatross got his knowledge about the Master Emerald.

"Where did you hear about it?" she asked. "I'm surprised that someone like you would be interested in the Master Emerald. Heh, wouldn't you be better off using that muscle of yours patronizing your victims?"

"Oh, no," he answered. "Rest assured. I'm not interested in any of those gems. What can a couple of rocks do for my work? If you want to know, it was my boss, who first told me about this. He knows that you're interested in them. He is willing to provide you the information you need."

The mere mention of the weasel made her frowned. "How does he know that I'm interested in this emerald?" she demanded.

"Why, my lady. He just knows."

_ Why am I not surprised?_

"Don't play dumb on me," she said, sounding a little angry. How could she have not foreseen this? "He has been watching me, hasn't he? I told you. I'm through with him."

"Miss Rouge, he just wants to talk. It has been six long years since you left the gang. You were a traitor to the clan. But, he has forgiven you and would like to invite you back to his club for a drink. He has information about the emerald that you may be interested to know."

Anger bubbled within her. Rouge did not want to have anything to do with the albatross, nor the weasel. However, she could not help losing her control. Not only had she just recently found out that there had been people stalking her, she had been dubbed as the traitor for leaving the gang. Feeling offended, she yelled, "Do you actually believe I have chosen to leave the gang to pursue my passion? What else did that weasel tell you?"

"Not much else," said the albatross. Something was amiss. She suspected that there might be more than what he had told her so far. "However," he continued, putting his right hand into one of his pocket trousers and carefully took out a Chaos Emerald. It was a shiny stone, about the size of his palm and it illuminated a beautiful shade of green.

Rouge stared wide-eyed at it, half frowning; half in awe of the shining gem. She stretched her hand to touch it but the large albatross quickly withdrew the emerald from her reach.

"He is willing to give it to you if you could come," he said.

Rouge sighed. She was ready to turn down the invitation but her temptation was far too strong. Her obsession for expensive jewelries had been one of her main weaknesses. Crossing her arms, Rouge thought carefully. If she agreed to accept the invitation, not only would she be able to get her hands on the green Chaos Emerald, she would also receive some important information about the Master Emerald, particularly its whereabouts. However, it could very well be also a trap.

With a heavy sigh, she finally nodded.

The albatross smirked, "A good woman can never turn down a good emerald, can she? I must admit. You do have good taste."

Without saying a word, she swung her hand and snatched the emerald from the albatross' hand.

"You better keep your end of the bargain. I'll have a drink with him but this emerald is mine. A drink and that's it. No funny business," she said.

The albatross merely grinned and said, "Don't worry. We are men of our words."

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It had been more than an hour since the albatross took her to the meeting place. It was a small pub, located right at the dark corner of a narrow alleyway, where drug dealers, smokers, and prostitutes were common to find. She was told to grab a seat first and help herself to a limitless amount of free drinks that was offered to her by the albatross as she waited for him to find his boss. She had refused to take anything that looked or smelled alcoholic and had merely taken a sip of apple juice from an orange glass, filled with tiny cubes of ice for a refreshing feel. The clock that hung above the shelf behind the counter that she was sitting next to showed half past eleven in the evening.

Throughout her first hour of wait, she had been approached by numerous furries, most notably weasels, who had either offered her free drinks or the opportunities to dance on the floor with them. She was not in the mood to do either and had graciously declined the offers. In places such as the pub, it was dangerous to accept offers from complete strangers, particularly those who had their eyes set on women. Rouge knew better and was avoiding such offers whenever possible. However, there was one particular hedgehog, a drunkard, who had caused her more problems than she would have otherwise tolerated.

He had offered her a cigar, which she quickly declined, explaining to him that she had stopped smoking a few years ago. Unfortunately, the hedgehog was not willing to leave her just yet. He took a seat beside her and had asked her for her name and contact number. When she refused to answer, the hedgehog chose to ignore her growing annoyance and started talking. She did not grab much on what the hedgehog had said but she heard, along the line, something about drugs, money and women.

Within seconds, she felt a tingling sensual touch on her lower back. Her ears quickly perked up. She swung her legs around and kicked the hedgehog's stomach. The inertia of the impact plunged the hedgehog to the other side of the counter, crashing onto a shelf of empty bottles and glasses. Several of the empty bottles were smashed into a million shards. The shards cut through the hedgehog's skin, resulting in several bloody wounds that went across his face, arms and legs.

The music stopped. The crowd stared and gasped at what they saw. However, her newfound fame had not bothered her a single bit. She went on tending her apple juice, stirring the drink and took a sip from it, ignoring the stares and the whispers. She heard the hedgehog groaned, while at the same time, cursed, mostly with words like 'damn' and 'shit!' coming from his mouth. He staggered up to her and lifted his clenched fist, attempting to strike her. However, he quickly stopped at what he was doing when he saw her calmly withdrawing a small pocketknife from her back and aiming its sharp edge toward his eyes. With a frightened look, the hedgehog hurriedly withdrew from his fight and staggered out of the pub - his face was flushed with a thick colour of red, feeling partly embarrassed and partly angry with the whole mess that he was in.

The event that night had sent a strong message to the men who dared to approach Rouge; they were better off leaving her alone to her own business. From there on, no one else had dared to bother her. However, it had left Rouge feeling even more annoyed and impatient than before. It was close to midnight. Yet, she was still left in the pub alone waiting for the albatross to appear.

She rested her arms on the counter and tapped her right fingers onto its wooden surface, creating a rhythmic pattern of waves.

"Miss Rouge," she heard someone calling her name. Recognizing the rough voice, she spun around and saw the large albatross. Near beside him, a purple weasel stood proudly with his trademark hat on his head and a leather belt worn around his waist, equipped with his favourite sniper, type 97 sniper rifle, grinning at Rouge with his huge fangs. He was tall for a weasel, only a head shorter than his henchman. He held a small cigar at his right hand, branded Winfield. The smell of the cigar filled the air and it caused Rouge to cough several times.

"Hello there, batgirl," the weasel greeted, with an obvious hint of a Brooklyn accent to his voice. With his cigar placed firmly at his mouth, the weasel inhaled deeply and puffed out the smoke, further polluting the already suffocating air. "Yer lookin' finer than ever."

Rouge, covering her mouth and attempting to fan away as much smoke as she could, replied, "And you're looking as despicable and disgusting…'

"Come now, Rouge," said the weasel as he reached for his hat and took out a box of cigarettes out of it and offered her a stick. "It has been six long years since I last saw ya. Surely, this would be a good time for us all to sit back and talk things through."

Refusing to take any of the cigars, Rouge firmly pushed the weasel's hand back to him and said, "Sorry, Nack. I don't smoke anymore."

Nack merely laughed. He flicked his burnt cigar off his hand, and said, "I dun believe this. The glamorous Rouge, has stopped smoking? Yer turning soft, my dear. Surely, ya can't possibly give up a good piece of cigar when ya see one."

She crossed her arms and retained her frown.

"Fine, fine. Your loss."

The weasel took a new cigar out of the box and had it lit with his lighter.

"Someday," Rouge said, shaking her head as she watched the weasel inhaling the cocaine and puffing it out, "your tobaccos are going to kill you."

"Relax, batty. I am not addicted to it," said the weasel with a cool, unshaken voice. "A few cigars here and there can never hurt." He stretched his hand and used the tip of his index finger to tap on his cigar, letting out a few pieces of its burnt part into the air. With his strong Brooklyn accent, Nack yelled, "Storm!"

"Yes, boss?"

"Go get yer own drink, while I attend to this lovely guest of ours."

The albatross silently nodded and he obediently left.

"He's Storm," explained Nack, noticing the obvious hint of curiosity in Rouge's face. "He's my best henchman around; young, loyal, obedient, reliable, perfect for any kind of jobs that I give him."

The answer did not amuse her. Rouge knew better. "Don't you mean jobs that involve stalking and terrorizing victims?"

Nack shrugged. "Say whatever ya want, batty. But, it's legal."

Rouge could not believe this. The business in dealing with drugs and cigars and the fact that there was this pub that had been used to support all of this…. This was not the only place that she knew that practiced such acts. The casinos, some videogame stores and a secretive underground base, where the must formidable criminals could be found…

Many of the illegal activities took place in these locations, prostituting, drug dealing, smuggling cigars and illegal loaning. This fact had been widely known in the public, particularly among the police force. Yet, nothing had been done to control these areas. Rouge suspected bribing and corruption. As she had often heard, these people owned the police. She remembered what Nack had said to her before, "What good a couple of laws can do to us when we have money?"

"Ya looked occupied, my dear. How about a drink?"

Rouge snapped her thoughts out of her mind and saw Nack offering a beer for her. That too she declined. She noticed that the weasel had taken a seat next to her, though he had kept a safe distance between them.

"Batty," said Nack, shaking his head in disbelief. "Yer turning soft. What is the matter? Ya have been living way too long with those law-biding citizens?"

Rouge felt partially annoyed with the comment. She pushed the beer aside and softly but fiercely hissed, "You perfectly know what had happened six years ago. Your henchman has told me that I left the group. What else have you told him?"

Nack shrugged. "That yer a one gorgeous babe," he whistled. "It seems like ya haven't changed a lot since ya left. Yer looking as beautiful as always, only sexier."

"If you dare touch me one more time," Rouge threatened, taking out her pocketknife and aimed its sharp edge toward the weasel. "I'll kill you."

"Fiery as always, eh?" said Nack coolly. "That is what I like about ya. But, relax. Ya have my word. We're here to talk. That's all."

Rouge relaxed a little and she withdrew her pocketknife. However, the bat chose to remain cautious. "Your henchman has mentioned about the Master Emerald. What do you know about it?"

"I know its whereabouts."

The bat's ears tensed. "Where?" she demanded.

But the weasel did not directly answer her. Instead, he devilishly smirked at her and moved his index finger, side by side; telling her that there was a price to pay. "Ya dun think I'm just goin' to tell ya straightaway, do ya? After all, the Master Emerald is a rare gem to keep. It could fetch me an excellent price if I could have it as my own."

"Don't you dare," Rouge threatened. "That emerald is mine."

"It is yers," said the weasel, placing his beer on the counter and pushing it toward Rouge. The glass slid a little and it stopped in front of the bat. "If ya could drink this..."

Rouge looked at the glass and hesitated. It had been a long time since she had touched any of this. The glass was half-filled, with a big piece of ice cube in it and a sliced lemon, half inserted, at the side edge of the glass. She took off the sliced lemon, held the glass close to her nose and smelt it.

"When have ya become so cynical?" she heard the weasel asking her. "I can't possibly do anythin' to my old comrade, can I? Ya have my word. There is nothin' in there."

Finally, Rouge took a huge gulp and finished the beer. She could have sworn that she heard a round of applause from Nack.

"Very good," he commented. "It appears that ya have not lost yer touch, yet."

"Alright, Nack," said Rouge. "I have done my part of the deal. So, where can I find it?"

"Ya have heard about Angel Island, haven't ya?"

Rouge hardened her eyes. Seeing that there was no reply coming out of the bat's mouth, the weasel continued, "Just this mornin', I wuz told by my men that they have heard of a rumor about an old fisherman livin' around this area, proclaimin' that he have seen a floatin' island out at sea two days ago. I wuz quite curious about this rumor. So, I have sent Storm to check on this matter. Accordin' to him, the old toad has seen the island about ten miles from here, at the east side of the town, out at sea. I thought this piece of information might be a value to ya. So, I have sent my men to find ya."

The answer though did not amuse Rouge. "That's far too broad. I need a better and more specific description of its location. You are not helping."

"At least," said Nack coolly. "I have given ya a basic idea on where to look."

The frown in her face did not leave her. "How reliable is the source?"

"That old dud is partially senile, but he knows what he is talking about."

_ Great._ Sarcasm. This was just what she needed- a source of information coming from a senile toad…. He could very well have recalled the location of the island wrongly and she had doubts that Nack would be this honest to her. Yet, this was the best chance she got.

"I could lend ya my cruiser," Nack offered. "It ain't gonna be easy to get there without a proper transport. The sea had been pretty rough for these past few days."

Wow, that was something new. Since when had the weasel become this generous? Rouge could not help but feel suspicious with the sudden generosity that the weasel was giving her. She grabbed hold of the weasel's leather belt and pulled him forward. Ignoring the strong alcoholic scent of tobacco from the weasel's mouth, she glared at him and made an intense eye to eye contact with his eyes. "What's your motive, Nack?" Rouge snarled. "Why are you suddenly helping me?"

Despite her annoyance, Nack remained calm. "Cool it, batty. This is just for old time's sake."

"If this is about trying to lure me back to the gang, forget it!"

"Whoever says that I want you back. No one is forcing you."

Rouge growled. For a moment, there was a dead silence between the two mammals. Rouge remained furious, whereas Nack remained calm and relaxed.

"I trust that you will keep your word," Rouge finally said, letting go of the weasel's belt. "Keep your cruiser. I will fly there."

Furiously, she took out a 50-dollar note out from her pocket and slammed it onto the wooden counter. "Keep the change. I don't need free drinks from a weasel like you."

Without saying another word, she stomped out of the pub and disappeared within the dark shadows of the alleyway.

A sly smirk went across Nack's face. What a fiery lady she was.

"I can't believe you've just told her!"

Nack sensed a new presence in the pub. "Feelin' jealous, my love?" he teased.

"No," said the newcomer. "I just think you're stupid." She walked out of the shadows and stood under the limelight, exposing her purplish feathers and shiny, cobalt eyes to Nack. Though she lacked the curvy figure to that of Rouge's, she was just as attractive, wearing a white tube top that covered only half of her upper chest, exposing her slim belly, a pair of white trousers with a bit of a violet flare on their bottom, and a white bandana, adorned with an exaggerated large pair of golden-coloured sunglasses.

"Why don't we get the emeralds for ourselves?" she lamented. "Just think, Nack. Think of the price that we can get if we possessed those emeralds for ourselves. We'll be billionaires!"

Nack sighed. It was a wonder how he had managed to tolerate her constant nagging all these months when they were together. "My dear," he said sternly. "Duncha even know what these emeralds are?"

"Of course I know what they are! They are the Chaos Emeralds. Rare stones that worth billions!"

"They are more than just money, Wave," Nack explained.

"Oh, really?" said Wave in disbelief, crossing her arms in annoyance. "What makes you think that you know more about the emeralds than I do?"

"Because," yelled Nack, raising his voice as he frowned at the swallow. "I have seen them before!" The yelling that she received from Nack had caused the swallow to remain silent. She disliked being yelled at. However, she knew better than to mess around with the weasel.

"They contain infinite chaos energies, Wave. They are much more powerful than yer regular power rings, so powerful than they can even provide a tiny speck of their energy to a man the power to destroy an entire city! I have seen this happen before," Nack explained, recalling the time when he had witnessed a blue hedgehog, who had borrowed such energy from the Chaos Emeralds, transforming into its shiny golden self, bursting with a huge amount of energy, to destroy the Death Egg.

Yet, all he received from Wave was a laugh. "Don't exaggerate. How could those things be this powerful? They are just mere rocks!"

Nack gave Wave a stern glare. The swallow became silent when she saw that his expression had not changed.

"Are you serious?"

Nack nodded.

"Then, why the hell did you tell that batgirl the location of those emeralds!? Surely, we could get those emeralds for ourselves and make ourselves flirty rich and powerful!"

"It's not as simple as ya think, my dear. Those emeralds…. They are hard to find." Furthermore, they were cautiously guarded by a certain red echidna that the weasel had grown to despise. It was he who was responsible for causing the weasel to become blind on one eye. The weasel had yet to find some way to get his revenge back on the echidna.

"Hah," Wave lamented. "Do you actually think that I am incapable to find them? I am much smarter and resourceful than that old girlfriend of yours!"

"Dun think too lowly of her, Wave," Nack explained. "I have known her far longer than ya do. She is an experienced treasure hunter and is far more capable in findin' those emeralds than ya can ever be. Leave the job of finding the emeralds to her."

"And what? We let her take the emeralds for her own keeping?"

"No."

Nack walked up to Wave and whispered to her ear. As she listened, Wave's grin grew wider and more sinister.

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It was well early in the morning but Rouge had lost count on the time she had spent flying across the sea to find the floating island. It could have been more than an hour, maybe two, or maybe even three. The night had not been pleasant as it started drizzling when she left the mainland and there were strong winds blowing opposite the direction she was heading.

Other than the terrible weather, the flight had been pretty uneventful. Miles and miles around, only water was in sight and this dull scene was starting to bore the bat. She tried looking up the sky for a change of scenery. However, the night had been cloudy and she could see no stars twinkling in the night- only a blanket of grey clouds covering the cobalt sky. Hell, she had not even seen a single speck of any floating island.

She had doubts finding the Master Emerald. Perhaps, this had been a cruel joke all along. Her fists clenched angrily at the mere thought of it. Had she been foolish enough to believe such fairy tales coming from a sly weasel, especially a weasel who had been known as a thief and a fraud? After all, would not have Nack kept the information for himself if he had known that the story was real?

She made an option to do one more final checking before she decided that this was a mere waste of time. She opened her mouth and unleashed a high-pitched sound wave and waited. If there was any object ahead of her, she would be able to hear its presence through the echoes of the sound wave that she created.

A minute passed. Yet, she heard nothing. Sighing, Rouge made a u-turn, deciding that it was time to head for home. However, a few seconds later, a soft echo entered the bat's ears. At first, she was surprised. Then, her excitement grew.

With her newfound energy and enthusiasm, Rouge increased her speed and flew toward the direction where she heard the echo. A small smile spread across her face when she saw a tiny speck of silhouette ahead of her.

The closer she flew to the silhouette, the clearer its shape became. There was no doubt about it. It was the floating island that she was seeing. Heh, maybe, she had been wrong about Nack. For once, the weasel was truthful.

Minutes passed before the island virtually came into a perfect view. There was a high mountain right at the centre of the island. At the foot of the mountain, she could see patches of fresh greenery, rainforests, flourished with majestic, exotic plants and colourful flowers. The floras were things that she had never seen before, huge mushrooms, tall trees, and flowers so beautiful that no words could ever be used to describe them. She was in awe with the beauty of the nature and Rouge was at loss for words. It was definitely different from the dull view of the sea.

Suddenly, Rouge heard a faint beep behind her. She turned around and gasped in shock when she saw a flying robot, which resembled the shape of a bee, charging directly at her. Quickly, she did a back-flip, dodging it in a near nick of time.

She held her breath and watched its movement carefully.

Slowly, the robot turned around and faced her with its glowing red eyes, sending a fearful chill throughout her body. Where had it come from? Its overall appearance looked eerie, yet strikingly familiar to her. Although she did not know what it was called, she had heard about this robot before. Dubbed as the king of flying robots, these badniks were known as the deadliest flying robots of its time- equipped with a wide range of weaponries in them, ranging from deadly lasers to missiles. Dr. Ivo Robotnik, a widely-known brilliant and yet, slightly insane, scientist, was the one behind these creations. He had used them for his own evil intentions. However, the project had been sealed a long time ago and it had been years since anyone saw another of this type of badnik. Hence, the presence of one right now greatly surprised her. However, this badnik that she was looking at right now looked different from it predecessors. It was far more streamline, quicker and looked tougher. She doubted that the good ol doctor was the one behind this.

She suspected Nack. However, she was certain that not even the weasel himself would be this brilliant enough to hack through one of the doctor's minions and programmed it for his own usage. Nack had always hated machines and preferred using brute force over mechanism. This simply was not his style.

She did not have the time to think things through. The badnik started firing chains after chains of missiles at her. The bat swerved around the sky in a zigzag pattern, leaving behind trails of black smokes, as the missiles exploded behind her. However, her speed failed to match the speed of the missiles and the last chain of the missiles exploded in front of her face. Thinking quickly, she shielded herself with her wings to block off the impact. Although she was barely unscathed, her left wing had been scraped.

Rouge moaned. She looked around and could see nothing but thick, black smokes all around her. As the smokes cleared, Rouge panicked when she saw that the robot was nowhere in sight.

From the corner of her eyes, she saw a blinding flash forming behind her. However, it was far too late. The moment she turned around, the badnik emerged out of the light and it dashed right at her and directly hit her gut with its stinger, resulting in the bat screaming in agony and vomiting out fresh blood from her mouth. The impact sent the bat spiralling down toward the floating island and crashed landed onto the thick branches of the forest trees before hitting the ground with a sickening thud. Her scream pierced through the night sky with the company of a lightning flash, followed by a loud thunderous boom, above her. She weakly coughed out more blood and slowly and painfully drifted off into a deep unconsciousness. She had a final look at the badnik glaring down at her before her vision blurred and eventually, blackened.

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"Marvellous." A sly smirk spread across his face as he watched a live video of Rouge plummeting down to Angel Island through a flat screen that hung across his office wall, opposite his wooden desk. Behind his desk, the weasel leaned on his chair- one hand hung over the back of his chair and the other, holding a half-burnt cigar- and took in a great amount of cocaine into his mouth and puffed out the smoke. "This is simply wonderful."

He turned his head to look at Wave, who had been sitting on the far end of his desk, with one leg on top of the other, swivelling around her necklace, adorned with a small, sphere-shaped, red metal device, worn around her neck. Wave posed a shrewd look to her face, which was half-hidden in the shadows due to the dim limelight of the office room. "I have never known that you would be this vicious," the weasel commented. "But, I like it."

Wave's smirk widened. She liked it when her boss was happy. It meant that she was a value to Nack. "Like I said," she bragged. "I'm far more capable than that old girlfriend of yours."

Nack remained silent. His sly smirk eventually dissipated. He knew well enough not to give Wave too much credit. Although Wave had proven much of her usefulness and her loyalty to him many times before, she had been known to be impatient, egocentric, stubborn and overly confident in her abilities. So much so that she would often go against his plans in favour of her own style in handling any tasks that Nack had assigned her to do. The last thing he needed right now was finding out that Wave had decided to mess around with his plans to pursue the Master Emerald in her own technique. Knowing her, he would expect Wave to take the initiative in searching the Master Emerald herself rather than waiting for Rouge to locate the gem for them. He gave a dead serious glare at Wave and warned her, "But, remember, Wave. We need her alive."

Wave, though, remained indifferent. Her sly smirk never dissipated. "Don't worry, Nack," she reassured as she lay on the table and placed her arms around the weasel's neck, flirtingly moving her hands from the back of his neck to his shoulders. "I perfectly know what I am doing," Wave seductively said. "After all, both you and I know just how 'precious' that batgirl is to you. I wouldn't want to see her dead now, would I?"

She moved her right hand away from Nack and held up her metal piece. Using her thumb, while completely ignoring the live video behind her that continued to flicker and expose her evil intentions, she pressed its centre.

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Upon receiving its signal from Metropolis, the flying robot shot out a laser beam from its stinger and struck a nearby cliff, resulting in a catastrophic explosion and a landslide, almost burying an unconscious victim alive.

Satisfied, the badnik flew off the island and disappeared within the thick grey clouds of the night sky as it headed back to Metropolis. As it did so, the sky continued to pour, accompanied with a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a loud thunderous boom that pierced through the night sky.

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	2. Lost World

Fact: The longer your chapters are, the less readers you're going to get. This is especially true in the Sonic fan fiction world. : P Almost everyone just seems to prefer a quick read over lengthy stories. Does anyone seem to care for character development anymore?

If you have managed to read through the entire Prologue and are still here, I must really congratulate you. This must either mean:

a) I have succeeded to get at least a small portion of you guys interested in this

or

b) You are just being patient.

I hope that it is the former.

Regardless, I really must thank to all those who decide to continue reading this. It's not easy to grab loyal readers.

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**CHAPTER 1**

LOST WORLD

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"Stolen? What do you mean stolen?!"

He yelled at the top of his lungs, glaring at his wrist communicator, watching a dark blue hedgehog rolling his eyes at the other end of the monitor. He had been feeling rather agitated the entire night - worrying over the potential danger that his island was in - and the sudden intrusion by the dark blue hedgehog telling him that the green Chaos Emerald was stolen did not help him calm his nerves.

"That's what I hate about you, Knucklehead," he heard the hedgehog said. "You are overreacting."

"Don't you put that tone on me, spiny!" the echidna strictly said. If there was one thing he could never understand about hedgehogs, it would be that they never take things seriously. "How could you have let this happen? Weren't you in the workshop? What were you doing? Sleeping? "

"Get this straight, ant-eater. I wasn't even in the workshop last night."

"Where were you then?" Knuckles asked between gritted teeth, feeling very irritated. "Fooling around, like you always do?"

"I was at the library last night!"

Yet, the echidna was not convinced- Pigs surely could fly if the hedgehog insisted on what he said was the truth. "Oh, really? Since when were you that interested in reading?"

"What do you take me for?" growled the hedgehog as he gave Knuckles a cold stare. "An idiot? I was trying to find out more about the emeralds."

"What idiot would leave a Chaos Emerald unguarded?!"

"How would I know that the shield would backfire?"

"A shield? What does a shield got to do with this? What shield are you talking about?" the echidna yelled.

However, the hedgehog did not give Knuckles an immediate answer. Spiny leaned back on his chair and heaved a heavy sigh. Closing his eyes, he used the tip of his right thumb and his index finger rubbing on his forehead due to his mild headache and exhaustion, a result from his continuous reading in the library throughout the night and his lack of sleep. Mental work was not exactly one of his biggest points…

Spiny opened his eyes and calmly explained, "The shield contraption that Tails just built a few days ago. We thought that it would be safe to use the machine to protect the emerald. It was a prototype. But we thought that it was good enough to generate a decent shield to prevent anyone from stealing it. So, I…"

"So, you have left that device on its own to protect the emerald, while you went out to do some reading. Smooth move, lamebrain!" Unfortunately, the echidna was far too impatient and irritated to pay heed on the hedgehog's current condition – he was far too agitated himself to care- and he rudely interrupted the hedgehog, concluding that Spiny simply was not responsible enough.

The unfair comment on the blue hedgehog would have normally sent him yelling at the red echidna. However, he was simply too tired to argue and merely said apologetically, "I told you, I didn't expect this to happen."

"Still, that is not a good excuse! I have six Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald to guard here. I leave just one simple Chaos Emerald for you to look after but you can't even do a decent job of guarding it!"

"Have you even been listening?" said the hedgehog, raising his voice a little. His headache was coming back … "I did not mean for this to happen."

"How hard can guarding one simple Chaos Emerald be?"

The red echidna was really pushing it. His head was pounding and Knuckles' yelling was not helping him. He closed his eyes and rubbed the side of his head. Finally, the hedgehog lost his temper and yelled at the echidna frustratingly, "Will you please just shut up for once? I get it. I get it! I shouldn't have been too careless with the emerald. I shouldn't have left it in the workshop. I should have stayed back. I get the point. Just stop your yelling!"

Knuckles finally stopped and his anger subsided, realizing that he had been completely unfair toward the blue hedgehog. Both of them were pretty much tired from their lack of sleep and they had their own things to worry about. Fretting over the lost emerald was the hedgehog's business, not his. Sonic merely had been polite enough to give him a call and tell him what had happened. Hell, he really should learn to control his temper. Losing his cool and venting out his frustration on people was not helping him.

Deciding to change the subject, Knuckles heavily breathed out his last remaining irritation and calmly asked, "Do you have any idea who was behind this?"

"Unfortunately, no," the hedgehog answered. Sonic then held out his hand and waved around an object in front of the monitor. "The only thing I found is this."

Knuckles blinked and moved his wrist closer to his eyes. The metallic object glittered under the limelight, showing off its long sharp steel parts and purple ring-shaped plastic twin handles, attached to the end of the blades. Interestingly, the handles were coloured in brilliant purple with matching dark violet flames painted at the edges. "A scissors?" he exclaimed questioningly.

"I found this lying next to the shield contraption," Sonic explained. "Most of the wires in the main controller have been cut."

"You think you can use that to find out who was behind this?"

"Unfortunately, I can't," Sonic said, sighing. "Usually, I leave this to Tails but, as you know, the kid is not here right now. But…" A pause. "…I think I have another solution. If you could…."

_Oh, no you don't. _He knew what the hedgehog was going to say next. Quickly, he said, "If you're thinking of borrowing one of the emeralds from me, the answer is no."

"Figures…" Sonic lamented, pressing his nose with his finger. Although Sonic had long expected what the answer was going to be, he had thought it might still worth a shot if he had asked. It was the only way he could currently think of to find the missing emerald. The Chaos Emeralds worked as magnets to one another. If he had managed to convince Knuckles to lend him one of the Chaos Emeralds, he would have been able to use it to track down the stolen gem. It would appear though that Knuckles was not prepared to lend him another Chaos Emerald. Well, he certainly could not blame him. He should have been more careful.

"How is it that I have even thought of asking you to look after the green emerald is beyond me," he heard Knuckles said.

"It can't be helped that your social network is that limited," Sonic said cheekily, posing a cheesy grin at Knuckles. "Who else would you entrust your emerald to?"

Oh, brother, Knuckles thought, fancy of Sonic joking around at a time like this. However, the hedgehog's grin did not last long. Gradually, the blue blur's facial expression turned serious. "You better watch your back," he warned. "I'm sure the culprit will be going after the rest of the emeralds."

Knuckles merely nodded. His thoughts ran back to the earlier part of their conversation when the hedgehog mentioned about finding out more issues concerning the Chaos Emeralds. He immediately asked, "Did you manage to find any additional information about the emeralds?"

"Yes and no," came the answer. "I hadn't been able to find any information about the Chaos Energy besides the things we already know but…" Sonic paused. He turned around and picked up a book, titled, 'Origin of the Snake God', from the table behind him and flipped through the pages. There were huge stacks of books behind him, most of them talked about echidna histories, emeralds, fables, theories about Chaos Energy and legendary gods. The hedgehog must have done a lot of reading, given that there were so many books scattered all over the table, which had been left open and bookmarked. The hedgehog eventually stopped his flipping and stretched out the book in front of the monitor for the echidna to see, showing him a picture of a giant Snake God triumphing above a fallen Mayan city, which was interestingly printed in a Mayan fashion on the left side of the book. "Here's an interesting bit," the hedgehog said as he struggled to remember the correct pronunciation for the name of the Snake God, "Guru, Gulu, Gluemalt…."

"Gukumatz," Knuckles corrected.

"Gukumalt…" the hedgehog said, earning him an instant glare from the echidna. "The Snake God," Sonic quickly corrected himself. "…was not just created by pure negative Chaos Energy, like you have originally thought, but it also was created through some strange ancient black magic, called the 'Poodle's Woes'."

"Poodle's Woes?" Knuckles reluctantly asked. "Are you sure you're getting your pronunciations correctly?"

"Screw it, Knuckles. I inherit no Mayan blood."

_Whatever you say…_

"The black magic is also known as what we modern English speakers would generally like to call, 'The Great Summoning', although the name does not necessarily hold true to the actual spell. Many of your fellow echidnas did not use the spell to summon already existing mystical creatures but rather, they used the spell to create new creatures out of various traditional elements. A real minority of the more powerful ahmens could even create 'fake' Gods through this spell."

"Wait, you mean to tell me that Gukumatz is echidna-made?" Knuckles asked in disbelief. He did not think he could accept this. The very idea of knowing that his people were capable in creating so-called gods disgusted him. Why would they want to do that? Unfortunately, his knowledge in his Mayan culture had been pretty limited and he could find no answers to his burning question. He had not even heard of such spell before. This was the very reason why he had been trying to find out as much as he could about the emeralds. The stories behind the emeralds held close to his Mayan heritage.

"You have heard of some echidna dude called Enerjak?"

Enerjak? Why did he suddenly have the strangest feeling that he had heard the name somewhere before? Yet, Knuckles was unable to recall anything that might have anything to do with the name. In the end, he merely said, "No."

"He was one of those ahmens who were gifted enough to have the power to create 'fake' gods. Coincidentally enough, he once served Chief Pacha," the hedgehog answered.

_Chief Pacha? Tikal's father? _"Don't you mean Chieftain Pachacamac?" Knuckles corrected.

Hearing the echidna's statement, the hedgehog frowned. "Hey!" Sonic lamented, looking rather offended. "It's just too hard to pronounce that ridiculous long name, ya know. This is one of those things that I don't understand about you echidnas. What is with your obsession with long and hard to pronounce names?"

"Don't you insult my ancestry, hedgehog," Knuckles defended. "What about yours? If I happen to remember correctly, most of your ancestors' names had not more than 3 letters in them. That's just ridiculous!"

"At least, those names are easy to remember!"

"I never had a problem with the names of my ancestry."

There was a death silence between them. Finally, Sonic withdrew himself from the argument and sighed. "You know," he moaned, shaking his head in silence. "I'm starting to wonder why I am even bothering myself doing all this…"

He examined the hedgehog's regretted face and pondered if he had a made another silly mistake. The hedgehog was right. Unlike him, Sonic was not profound in the Mayan culture. Why did he always have to go and correct the blue speedster? Likely, his mixed emotions of feeling rather agitated and frustrated had not left him as he would have like to think. Finally, he asked "What about Enerjak?" determining to break the awkward silence between himself and Sonic.

Fortunately, the hedgehog did not pursue the matter and he continued, "As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted…" raising his voice and glaring at Knuckles for a brief moment, "…Enerjak was an ahmen who used to serve Tikal's dad. Interestingly, he originally did not come from your tribe. He was an Incan."

It was strange. From what Knuckles knew, his tribe and the Incan tribe had never been in good terms with one another before. He remembered what Tikal had said to him, her father hated the Incans. The fact that Pachacamac had allowed the ahmen into the Mayan tribe was something unheard of. There must be some reasonable explanation to this…

"The Incans were famously known for their summoning and black magic skills," he heard Sonic explained. "The majority of the most gifted ahmens came from this tribe and Enerjak was one of them. Yet, Enerjak was not exactly the nicest echidna around and his people hated him. As his power grew stronger and stronger, he began challenging his tribe's chieftain for leadership. However, this had also resulted in him banished from his tribe.

"It happened at the same time that the Incans were at war with your ancestors. When the news of Enerjak's banishment reached Tikal's dad, he immediately invited the ahmen over to the Mayan tribe, realizing just how useful Enerjak would be for his black magic skills and his knowledge concerning the Incans. It was Chief Pacha who had encouraged Enerjak to use his black magic to create the Snake God out of the negative Chaos Energy of the Chaos Emeralds to extract his revenge on the Incans. However, Gugluemalt was beyond their control. Hence, it was forced back into the Chaos Emeralds."

As Knuckled listened, he nodded deep in thoughts. For a moment, he looked dazed. "Strange," he murmured. "I have never heard Tikal talking about this before…."

"It would be wise to ask her about this," the hedgehog suggested, his face looking more deadly serious by the minute as he closed his book and placed it back on the table behind him. "She may know more than what this book is telling us."

Yet, there was one more burning question left unanswered that had been troubling the echidna for a while now. "But," he asked. "How did they manage to seal Gukumatz back to the Chaos Emeralds? I know the fact that they had used the positive Chaos Energy to imprison him. But, how did they do it? Doesn't the book have anything else about the Snake God or the emeralds?"

"Nada," the hedgehog pessimistically said. "The rest of the pages are missing."

"Missing?" Knuckles screamed, raising his voice a little. He pressed his nose against the monitor and glared at the hedgehog. The truth was so close. "How on earth could they be missing? There may be some important information that we may have missed!"

"It's just our dumb luck then," the hedgehog said simply, trying to sound as optimistic as he could. "Surely, you should be able to find some murals on your island that would be able to provide you with some answers."

"It's useless," Knuckles moaned, lowering his voice as he calmly moved his wrist away from his face. "I have been scouring through my island for days but I have found nothing."

"Keep searching. I'm sure you'll find something soon."

Knuckles sighed. "It's not as easy as you think, Sonic."

He knew every nook and cranny, every dark hidden corner, and had scoured through every areas, every zones, of his island that he could think of but he had found nothing new about his echidna heritage. Realizing that most of his efforts had been futile, the echidna had given up searching for anymore clues or information that might help him answer his questions. He knew little about his Mayan heritage and this had been frustrating him more and more as the weeks drew by. His people were not exactly that fond in the context of arts and language, leaving very little of their Mayan culture for their descendants to preserve, and hence, this had left many of their Mayan knowledge and traditions deteriorated and forgotten. There were other problems too.

"Most of the ruins here are centuries old," he explained, realizing just how dependent he had become on the blue hedgehog in finding new information for him. "Even if I do find something, most of the wordings will be too washed-out for me to read. I doubt I could even read half the things written on the walls. The language is far too ancient for me to understand."

"What about Tikal?" the hedgehog asked, knowing that Tikal was far more knowledgeable in the echidna heritage than Knuckles. If there was anyone who would be able to read the ancient writings, it would be her. "She should be able to understand the language better."

Yet, Knuckles heaved another sigh. It was useless. During the ancient times, the echidnas were widely known for their various ethnic groups. Though the echidnas shared similar religions and traditions among themselves, there were minor differences between their tribes concerning their culture and beliefs, particularly in the context of their languages. His ancestors themselves spoke two different languages, Huastecan and Yucatecan. The commoners preferred using the Yucatecan language for its simpler glyphs and its status as a lingua franca language among the echidna people. The Huastecan language, on the other hand, was not as commonly used, only a handful of the higher-ups in the Mayan tribe, used this language, and alas, Tikal was one of them.

Knuckles pessimistically said, "Unfortunately, Sonic. The only ancient Mayan language that Tikal had ever learned to read was the Huastecan language. Most of the murals here are written in Yucatecan."

Rubbing his chin, Sonic thought deeply. Murals were the only key that would help them in finding the answer to their current problems. The books generally had been useless, most talked about the things that they already knew. Angel Island could not possibly be the only place where he could find murals about the echidna history. There must be some other places where he might have missed, some other ancient settlements, where the echidnas had chosen to preserve their heritage. Suddenly, the hedgehog looked more awake than ever. Clenching his right fist, he slammed it onto his left palm. An idea hit him. Why did not he realize this before? Hell, he was currently in this very place, temporary staying in his kid buddy's workshop. Excitedly, he pulled himself toward the monitor and said quickly, "What about the ones in Mystic Ruins?"

However, the echidna did not share his enthusiasm and he remained pessimistic. "Those? Forget it. Those ruins don't even belong to my tribe. They are written in ancient Aztec."

Yet, this did not faze the hedgehog. Grinning, he enthusiastically said, "Still, I think it's worth having a look at it. You know just how obsessive those Aztecs were with their history. They might have the answers that we are looking for. I'll run the errand. Take it that I owe you for losing the emerald."

"I'm telling you, hedgehog. It's not worth your time."

"No biggie," the hedgehog said, rubbing his nose as he pulled his gaze away from the echidna and looked to a nearby window of the workshop, noticing an ordinary chimp climbing down a tree outside and staring straight at the open window. "It not as if I have anything better to do. The kid won't be back till next Wednesday."

"Has the doc been this quiet lately?" the echidna asked, recalling how utterly defeated the doctor had looked during the catastrophic flooding in Metropolis. Judging by the hedgehog's look, he could tell how bored Sonic was.

"Hell, I haven't even heard anything from him since…" A pause. "Hey, hey, hey! Get off that window, damnit!" he suddenly heard Sonic yelled as the hedgehog ran off screen and shooed off the chimp that came in halfway through the window. With a frightened look, the chimp quickly grabbed an apple from a wooden bowl on the table and hurriedly leapt back out to its tree. The blue hedgehog cursed, scolding the chimp as he slammed the window shut. Glaring at Sonic, the brown ape growled and chattered noisily. Knuckles raised an eye as he watched this strange occurrence unfold.

"I hate monkeys!" the hedgehog yelled, looking at his now empty bowl. "Great, that was my last apple in the workshop!"

"What the heck just happened?" Knuckles asked, grabbing the hedgehog's attention back to the monitor.

"It's nothing," the hedgehog said calmly, though his facial expression looked otherwise.

In a distance, Knuckles heard a soft groan. The echidna's eyes widened. Pulling his gaze away from his wrist communicator, Knuckles looked up.

Towering above him were hundreds of giant mushrooms sprouting close to one another, creating a colourful ceiling of cosmic blue, red, chocolate brown and olive jade above the lush green forest floor with their mushrooms head bobbing around like jellies. Some of them were speckled with lemon yellow, ocean blue and copper crimson spots. In normal days, the mushroom ceiling sheltered the forest floor from the tropical sun, resulting in a very dark, dense and wet mushroom forest, creating an ideal spot for young mushrooms to sprout. It also served as a roof, protecting the forest floor from tropical storms.

The night had been raining but the silvery raindrops still found their way through the little circular windows that naturally existed among the mushrooms heads. Despite the beauty of the natural wonder, the red echidna paid no heed to any of this. Instead, he focused his gaze on one of the tiny windows of the mushroom ceiling and directly stared at Angel Island's only mountain in a far distance, frowning.

The top of the mountain was snowing. There was where the Ice Cap Zone was located. He remembered once seeing a frozen waterfall deep in the snowy zone that interconnected with a rushing river in the outer part of the cap, which flowed down to the foot of the mountain and eventually to the forest part of the island. From there, the river subdivided into shallow streams and the water spread to the rest of the island.

Water. There was too much water right now. It had been raining for hours and there were symptoms of a coming disaster. The streams were overflowing and the water pipes in the Hydrocity zone were bursting. He looked to the left side of the mountain and saw a large dam, groaning as the water pressure in it increased.

"Is something up?" he heard Sonic said, grabbing the echidna's attention back to his communicator.

"Sonic," Knuckles said quickly. "I can't chat anymore right now. The rain is getting heavier. And unless I intervene, the dam is going to burst."

"Ah, well," fumbled the hedgehog as he rubbed his quills with his hand. Lucky him… "We'll… talk later then. Bye."

"Bye." The monitor flicked and the screen went black.

_Now, to get to that switch…_

He sprinted into a run, ignoring the squishy, spongy forest floor, stepping onto every puddle that he came across. The atmosphere felt heavy and damp and he felt yellow spores crawling all over his fur. That was what he hated about Mushroom Hill; it lacked proper ventilation.

As he continued his way to the centre of his island, the mushroom forest became sparser and sparser, gradually shifting into a thick lush tropical forest area. The echidna slowed down his pace and examined his surrounding. He could hear the heavy raindrops that beat down on the giant leaves of the rainforest. The trees were growing close to each other, with very little space between them for tiny forest animals to crawl or run through. Ants were crawling on the trunks of the trees and a bee flew by in search of its hive. The only area that was left untouched by the wild floras was the circular clearing that the echidna was standing on. He examined the carved marble ground that led his eyes to the entrance of a limestone cave.

At the centre of the clearing stood an elephant-sized statue of a Mayan echidna warrior, wielding an iron spear, with three very large feathers attached to the blade, posing a defensive stance. The stone looked ancient as he noticed a crack that ran through the echidna warrior's head to its tail. One of its hands was missing and there were vines going around the warrior's feet and legs. It was carved wearing a chain of beads and feathers strung together around its neck, a robe and a pair of ancient Mayan sandals, with a series of straps that ran around its feet. There was a pair of green stripes that went across its forehead, though the smear looked extremely washed-out. A white dove came by and it perched on the head of the echidna statue to rest. Other than the absence of a crescent moon on its chest, the statue looked a lot like himself. He felt weird just by thinking about it. Tikal had mentioned once before. If it was not for the fact that the statue was centuries old, she would have thought that the statue itself was Knuckles. However, she had dismissed her statement as quickly as she had acknowledged it, claiming that it was nothing significant to worry about.

Ignoring the statue at hand, he shook his head and concentrated on his current mission. He walked into the cave, noticing the stalactites that dangerously hung above him. The inside of the cave looked vastly different from the outside. The entrance had looked small, but the cave contained a wide open area in it, so wide that it was big enough to contain the entire Death Egg. Its height reached to the very top of the mountain with its centre revealing the night sky above through an eagle-shaped hole. A large waterfall surged through the opening and down onto a flowing river.

Behind the waterfall stood a Mayan pyramid with a flight of stairs of three hundred steps leading up to the temple at its top. Small, little palm trees grew on either side of the stairs- alive and well-kept. Given that the pyramid was at least centuries old, the structure was unusually left untouched and unspoiled. He noticed the burning torches surrounding the pyramid, blazing in a shimmering ghostly blue. According to Tikal, these were the holy fires that had been left burning for centuries. As long as Angel Island continued to exist, no water, nor wind, nor anything could ever put out these flames. He often had wondered what had kept these holy flames burning.

Maybe, it was the large amount of Chaos Energy that continued to surge through the cave. Perhaps, it was the spirits of his ancestors' lost souls, trapped in an alternate reality between Xibalba and this world that kept the flames burning. He recalled the tale that his god-father had once told him when he was a mere child. When an echidna died, his spirit would either be reborn or taken into Xibalba. However, there were a few spirits, who had never been able to find their way into the spirit world and had remained trapped between two realities. Feeling sympathetic toward these spirits, the Mayans built this pyramid as a memorial for these lost souls. Though the story had been intriguing to him when he was younger, Knuckles had found it hard to believe on such tale, figuring that his lack of faith in his echidna religion might have been due to his influence to the outside world. The former explanation seemed a lot more acceptable and logical than the latter.

Snapping his thoughts out of his mind, the red echidna quickly ran through the waterfall and up the steps, remembering that there was a hidden stairway inside the pyramid.

The inside of the temple was empty, except for a shallow pool built at the centre of it. There was a stone-carved statue of a snake swiveling around its body in a circular fashion with its head hanging high above its remaining parts, looking upright at the door of the temple in the middle of the pool. It was a little fountain with a tiny bit of water gushing out of the snake's opened mouth. Its eyes glowed in an eerie hue with a continuous shifting of colours between sapphire and deep crimson.

Knuckles walked around the pool and to the back of the fountain snake. Lifting his left hand, he touched the statue's back, triggering a tiny earthquake within the chamber as the wall behind him shifted - its bricks automatically moved and merged with the remaining parts of the wall at either side, revealing a hidden entrance at the back of the temple.

Within the dark shadows of the hidden room, the red echidna saw a flight of stairs spiraling down to an underground cavern. The hidden pathway was not lit. As it was dark, Knuckles grabbed a hidden Chaos Emerald from his glove and held it on his palm. He carefully and tenderly blew on the white gem, inflaming the chaos energy within it. The emerald shook and cackled. Within seconds, its energy exploded in a strange sizzling light and its brightness lit the dark stairway. Strangely, the reaction did not burn the echidna's hand. Instead, it felt warm and pleasant and its light remained bright. With a quick nod, Knuckles sprinted into a run as he headed down the stairway.

As he ran halfway through, a part of the stairs he stepped on crumbled and the red echidna fell into a dark abyss below him. Thinking quickly, he shoved his white Chaos Emerald back into his glove and slammed his fists onto a wall, hooking himself tightly against the bricks with his spiked knuckles. Closing his eyes and frowning, he groaned silently in pain, his spiked knuckles screeched as gravity continued to pull him down. Eventually, the pull stopped and he opened his eyes. Knuckles looked up and saw a quadruple line of dents on the wall above him, frowning when he moved his gaze further up and noticed the hole that he fell through was completely blocked off. There was no way of going back to his intended route.

Great, he thought, frowning. The usual route was completely cut off. The only way now was down and he was not sure where it would lead him.

Deciding that there was no other choice, Knuckles descended down into the dark abyss, carefully placing his legs in the tiny gaps he saw between the ancient bricks and lowering his fists and slamming them on the wall. It was not the best method he could think of, given that his spiked knuckles were ruining the ancient wall, but it was the easiest method to climb down. Gliding would be his last option. Who knew what was hidden in the shadows and Knuckles chose to remain cautious, remembering that his Mayan tribe had the habit to implant hidden traps within their ancient pyramids.

Knuckles eventually reached the bottom. He leapt off the wall and landed on the floor. The shallow water beneath him caught him with surprised. His shoes became wet and it soaked his feet. Where was he? The chamber he was in was wide and dark and he could hear tiny drips all around him but he was unable to make the end of this open room. The atmosphere felt heavy and damp and he smelt moist. He shivered a little as he felt a sudden cold wind gushing through the dark chamber. There must be an opening somewhere in this room and if there was an opening, there should be a way out.

He held out his white Chaos Emerald and looked around. Its brightness revealed long, forgotten ruins all around him with clear carved murals on them, untouched by the outside weather. The area he was in was not a chamber as he originally thought. No. It was an underground cave.

Strange, Knuckles thought. He never knew that his ancestors were keen in building a small temple in a hidden area such as this. After a brief moment, he frowned and cursed at himself, realizing just how ignorant he had been. There might be more hidden areas in his island that the echidna himself had not been aware of. Judging by the looks of this underground cave, he suspected that it had been used as a sacrificial area. There were rusted knives and blades scattered all over the ground and he could see twisted hidden bones within the thick layers of stalagmites in a dark corner. The scene looked horrible and his stomach churned.

Ignoring the dead bones, he went up to one of the ruins and brushed his hand against one of the murals and examined a glyph of a feathered snake devouring a brilliant cut emerald. Next to it was another glyph revealing Perfect Chaos. He was unable to make out the story behind these glyphs but as he looked harder, his excitement grew. Unlike the murals he often stumbled on at the surface of his island, these murals were left untouched and were readable to a naked eye. What was more pleasing to him was that they were written in a language that only Tikal would fully understand. They might have the answers that he had been looking for and he fought the urge to run back to the shrine and instantly pull the female echidna to come here. That would have to wait.

A drip of water splashed onto his forehead. The red echidna looked up, noticing a line of water running through a stalactite and breaking into a drip at the sharp edge. His face frowned and his eyes hardened, knowing that the pressure in the dam was worsening. The underground cave was directly under the dam. If the dam burst, this whole area would be flooded and he would be damned to lose this burning opportunity to learn more about his ancestry.

Knuckles hurriedly ran. Noticing an opening at the end of the cave, he leapt out of it and found himself in the Hydrocity Zone. Finally, an area that he was familiar with.

He found himself standing on a floating platform, overlooking the underwater city below. An artificial-made sun, about a hundred meters in length, was hanging over the city at the ceiling. Seeing there was no further need for his White Chaos Emerald, Knuckles kept the emerald back into his glove. The city was divided into various water tanks, plagued with powerful underwater fans, gushing water, conveyor belts, spikes, screwed speed boosters and gigantic loops. No two tanks were alike as their sizes and their densities varied. The zone was one of the biggest areas on Angel Island and it was easy to get lost here. The only safe way to get around was through the purple water slides that snaked around the zone like wild roller coasters. This entire area itself looked like an underwater playground.

Without a choice, he leapt onto one of the purple water slides, half full of salty water, and slid down, splashing into a big water tank. The inertia sent him diving down into the clear, salty water. Quickly, he paddled his legs and burst out of the water to catch his breath.

He went on to dry land and rested for a while.

A great force hit his back. Greatly surprised, the red echidna fell flat on his face. Ignoring the pain, he looked up and saw a jet-like blue badnik charging directly at him. Quickly, he rolled to his left, but a new perpetrator bulldozed his side, sending him crashing onto a wall.

He tried pulling himself up but he stumbled back down onto the ground, wincing and cursing at himself for being negligent on his surrounding, as pain struck his right arm. Blood was flowing down from a deep cut at his elbow. The screen on his wrist communicator flickered, destroyed due to the impact. Useless, he thought. Tails would never hear the end of this.

He glared at the badniks. The first perpetrator made another quick charge at him, while the second, which was a sad hybrid of a bug and a rocket, turned around and blasted its missile. Thinking quickly, he leapt out of the way, moved to the jet's back and kicked it into the wall – the collision destroyed it. Then, he aimed his left fist and struck the missile off his course.

The last badnik made an attempt to escape but Knuckles leapt onto it and slammed his usable fist onto its back. He did a backflip and landed back onto the ground just as the badnik exploded.

There. That would take care of them. Lousy, obsolete badniks...

Most of the badniks had been destroyed by Knuckles a couple of years back immediately after he retrieved the Master Emerald from Robotnik, determining to wipe out any trances of the old fart's crimes from Angel Island. However, there were a few badniks left that continued to roam around his island aimlessly looking for victims. They were not as dangerous as they used to be, but they were still annoying, popping out every once in a while when he would least expect them.

He made his way to the centre of the zone and finally found the switch in a hidden room only Knuckles himself knew. Using his right feet, he stomped onto the switch and turned off the power that ran Hydrocity. The artificial waterfalls stopped and the water slides dried up. The zone itself became dark.

The special thing about Hydrocity was that it controlled the entire water system in Angel Island, including the natural rivers and streams that flowed in various parts of the surface. This helped to adjust the water level on the island so that it would always be on its optimum level. If there was too little water on the island, Hydrocity would pump its excess water out to the surface. However, if there was too much, the pumping would have to be stopped as it risked flooding the entire island.

Sighing to himself, Knuckles leaned against a wall, closed his eyes and smiled. The worrying part was over and he yearned to catch some good night sleep. He had lost track of his time but he was sure that it was close to dawn.

As if fate would not allow him to sleep just yet, a loud explosion was heard from outside. His eyes widened in disbelief and the echidna hurriedly made his way out of the zone and back to the forest area.

What he saw stunned him. He made his way through the thick lush forest floor, tearing any leaves or ferns that got in his way, and stood on a disintegrated cliff. He knelt down and examined the soil, noticing a couple of burnt parts here and there. His gaze followed to the edge of the cliff and to the pile of earth beneath it. Judging by the looks of it, the cause of the landslide looked unnatural. The explosion that he heard earlier…. Did that blast had something to do with this?

He quickly stood up and slid down the muddy pile, almost tripping himself as he felt a stone, a rock or something caught onto his right feet. Glancing back, his eyes widened in surprised as he saw a twisted bloody hand sticking out of the pile. Quickly, he dug out the soil and uncovered a bloody face. Had there been a fight? If there was, how did victim here ended up so bruised and injured? How and why did it come here?

"Hey!" he yelled, as he gently stroked the injured victim's cheek. "Are you awake?"

No response. He dug some more soil out of the way and uncovered the remaining part of the victim. By then, he realized that the victim was a female, a white beautiful bat with her tangled fur curved to the back of her head. Her black jumpsuit, adorned with a pink heart-shaped metallic chest plate on her chest, looked torn and one of her gloves was missing. Her high-heel boots with matching heart-shaped metallic blades, fastened to the bottom of each of the boots, looked cracked and their bases were nearly peeled off. From head to toe, she was covered in mud.

He held up her hand and felt her purse. The victim was still alive, unconscious but alive. Sighing, he knelt down beside her and gently pulled her out of the pile. Carefully he wrapped her hands around his neck and carried her on his arms, ignoring the wincing pain that struck his right arm. Intruder or not, it would be heartless of him to leave her in the lurch. He headed back to his hut with only one thing running through his mind: questions, endless of them.

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	3. Confrontation

Believe it or not, I actually listen to Sonic 3 and Knuckles remixes while I write this to stimulate my brain.

MaxieDaMan in Youtube has one of the best remixes out there. You guys should try and listen to one his works, especially if you are an old school sonic fan. They just sound nostalgic!

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**CHAPTER 2**

CONFRONTATION

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'_Where… am I?'_

_Rouge blinked and she looked around, everywhere was pinch black, no walls, no floor, nothing. Her spine shivered as she felt the cold, empty space of eternal darkness and silence, drifting._

_"You should have been more careful, Knuckles. You just twisted your arm the other day and it's not fully healed yet. I'm afraid you may have developed a fracture in there. "_

_"Typical of you to say that, Tikal. I'll be fine."_

_Her ears perked up__, voices, distant voices. The former sounded feminine, gentle and sweet, while at the same time, mature. The latter though sounded cruder, rougher, and more masculine, with a strong sense of toughness within its vocal chord. She glanced around but there was no one else here… _

_"Fine?"__ she heard the former said unhappily. There was a minute of silence. _

_Suddenly, without warning, Rouge__ heard an abrupt shout from the latter, sending a piercing chill across her body. Her ears picked up a soft whimper from him, and then, an angry, stern moan. "Don't! Just don't! It hurts!"_

_"I'm glad you noticed," said the former with a strange sense of sarcasm to her voice, which it did not suit her mature tone._

_There was another pause of silence before she heard the female talked again, "Hey, look…" though, this time, her voice sounded much softer, almost like a whisper. "Her eyes are fluttering. I think she's coming to."_

_The bat__ waited to hear more but the voices simply died out from there – though now she could hear footsteps, heavy footsteps that became clearer and more lucid by the minute…_

"Knuckles!" An angry hiss. This was quickly followed by the splash of a bucket of water on her, abruptly jerking her out of her semi-unconsciousness, snapping her eyes open and getting her upper body up from…a bed? Her hands gripped on a wet thin towel and she found herself sitting on a thick home-made mattress. Then, without warning, a tremendous needle of pain shot her stomach and she winced, noticing a sequence of clean bandages going around her stomach and up her left shoulder and around her left wing. She rubbed her forehead as she felt a severe headache pounding onto her confused mind.

"Are you awake yet?" she heard a rough voice asking her.

Glancing to her right, she saw two Mobians standing next to her, one male and the other, female.

The male Mobian was giving her an unwelcome stare with an intimidating pair of unusual huge fists, with two menacing looking spikes on each of his knuckle, crisscrossed on his chest. His fur was a glaring red, save for his white patch of fur on his upper chest, which took the shape of a u-shaped crescent moon. A white bandage ran around his right arm and up to his shoulder.

The girl behind him looked tamer and thinner but she held no smiling face either. But rather than looking at Rouge, the girl was frowning at the male Mobian. Her fur was a lighter shade of red, vermillion to be more precise, with a small hint of a pinkish tone to it, matching with her white garment stripped around her chest and her brown tribal skirt with its bottom hem fringed. At the bottom of her feet, the vermillion Mobian wore a pair of matching white sandals with a sequence of straps going around her feet and legs. A golden tiara, adorned with a circular blue gem in the middle of it, embraced her forehead.

Despite their differences in term of personas and garments, the two Mobians also shared strong similarities in their physical built; dreadlocks, long bent tails, pointed noses. Wait. Echidnas? Were not they an extinct race?

"I-I-I…I…"

Words, she tried finding her words. However, she was far too stumped in her current condition to structure any proper sentences to talk. There were so many questions running through her head. Where was she? How did she end up here, all bruised and bandaged? Who were these people? Wincing, she moaned in silence and tightly shut her eyes as she felt her head pounding endlessly. She tried remembering what had happened before she was plunged into her unconsciousness but her memory remained fuzzy.

"Good," said the male echidna, snapping her eyes open and grabbing her attention back on him. A small smirk went across his face. He pulled a wooden chair next to the bed and sat on it. Crossing his legs with his hands placed firmly on his lap, he continued, "Now, I want answers. Who are you? And what are you doing here on my island?"

Wh-what? What was the male echidna blabbering about? She could barely understand what was going on. Yet, here he was, sitting next to her, asking her questions. Thankfully, the female echidna behind him stepped in and reasoned, "Knuckles, can't we leave this till tomorrow morning? Both you and the girl need rest."

However, the male echidna… Knuckles, was it? He looked away in silence with his expression remained serious and slightly angry. It did not appear like he was going to change his mind anytime soon as he merely said, "I'm not tired."

In return to his response, the girl frowned a little. "Don't lie," she said sternly. "I know you are." uncharacteristically glaring at Knuckles. However, she received no response from him. Sighing, she softened her glare a little and continued, "Even if you aren't, could you please be more considerate? She's injured. What harm can she do to us?"

This however did not faze him. "Injured or not, she's still an intruder here and I can't tolerate that."

_Wait. _"Intruder?" Rouge quickly found herself talking, earning her a quick glance from the two strangers. "What do you mean intruder?" She was not expecting this. Was not she in Angel Island? A supposed floating island that was known to be a secluded and isolated place from civilization? She was not expecting that there would be echidnas living on it. Yet, a part of her felt uncertain with her own assumptions. Was she still in Angel Island, at all? Or had she made a mistake in her route and had been left stranded on a different island? The mere thought of it confused Rouge even further and she wanted answers.

However, none of the strangers answered her. The female hesitated a little, whereas the male echidna gave her a sarcastic stare for he was not amused with her confused mind. For a while, the whole hut fell into a deaf silence, save for the rain outside that continued to beat down onto the roof above them. Finally, Tikal broke the silence and simply said, "I'll get us some water." She knelt down onto the floor and grabbed the empty bucket the red echidna had used to splash water on Rouge. Standing up, the vermillion echidna shoved an elbow onto Knuckles' bandaged arm and gave him a brief scowl. Wincing, Knuckles responded by giving her his own death stare but it was ignored. The door shut tight as Tikal walked out of the room, leaving the two injured Mobians alone to handle the issue at hand themselves.

Rouge tried getting herself out of the bed but she stumbled back down, realizing that her hands and legs were tightly bounded together respectively with thick, hard ropes made of dried vines and flax twisted together. They rubbed against her skin and it caused rash and mild itchiness on her wrists and legs. Her gaze fell on her right wrist – its missing glove exposed a burning rash on her skin. This frustrated her to no end. "Hey," she yelled. "What is the meaning of this?!"

The only response she received from the red echidna was a shake at his head. His action angered her. It did not matter to her now if she wanted answers or not, Knuckles' indifference to her physical pain and embarrassment was beginning to irritate her.

"Untie me!" she demanded but this did not faze him.

Instead, the red echidna stood up and started walking around the room – arms crisscrossed, face looking as hard as a rock. Finally, he stopped and glared at the bat. "Do you know what this is?" he sternly asked as he took out a shiny gem out of his glove and held it out on his left palm for Rouge to see.

She gasped a little. The shiny gem was a brilliant cut white emerald. Its shimmering surface reflected the light from a burning white candle that stood on a small bamboo-made table in a dark corner of the room. The size and the shape of it resembled the stone the large albatross gave her the previous night. Where did that red goon get his own emerald? But she acted like she knew nothing and gave him a bored expression. "So?" The last thing she wanted now was to remain cooperative to a complete stranger that she already decided to hate. What good can this conversation do to her, given the current state she was in?

But, the red echidna was not convinced. He looked at her with a sly smirk that went across his face. "Judging by your look," he said as he continuously tossing the white emerald to the air and catching it. "I'm guessing that you do actually know what it is."

_What a big idiot. Who does he think he is? _"It is a Chaos Emerald," Rouge stubbornly said. "Big deal!"

"Oh," said Knuckles with a playful tone in his voice as he stopped his tossing and caught the emerald with ease. "It is a big deal alright. I believe I have something that belongs to you."

Her eyes widened in surprised as she watched the red echidna grabbing another Chaos Emerald out of his glove and carefully held it out on his left palm, next to his own emerald. Recognizing the colour scheme of the new emerald, she quickly yelled at him as she tried pulling herself out of the bed, "That's my emerald, thief! Give that back!" However, she stumbled back down as she felt another needle of pain in her stomach. Great, she thought, this was what she just needed. Trapped. In an unknown hut with a rough goon treating her like she was a criminal.

"Pretty ironic to hear that from the likes like you," she heard him said.

"I'm not a thief!" she defended. "I just got that…" A pause. She would be darned if she attempted to reveal any information about herself to the red stranger. Finally, she merely said, "… from someone!"

"Who?"

The nerve of him… What right did he have to dig into questions that she simply refused to answer? "That's none of your concern. Just give that back!"

"Not till you tell me who gave you the emerald."

"No!"

"Fine," the red Mobian said, frowning as he shoved both the emeralds back to his glove. "I'll keep this emerald for myself then."

Gritting her teeth, Rouge frowned at Knuckles as she clenched her fists tightly. Never in her life had she seen such crude manner from a male Mobian. "What kind of an attitude is this? That emerald is mine. How can you just take it from me like that? You call yourself a man?"

The red echidna hardened his face. "What sort of a lone woman like you appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the night looking all bloody and bruised?" he asked, raising his voice a little as he went on. "Surely, something must have happened when I found you lying unconscious on the ground like that!"

"Yeah, sure," Rouge said, rolling her eyes as she looked away from the red echidna. Suddenly, her eyes widened a little - a slight realization hit her face as she recalled the flying robot she encountered hours ago. It was a powerful badnik - to the point that she was barely able to defend herself. The memory of her death fall that almost caused her life was still fresh in her mind. Till now, she was not able to figure out who was behind the ambush. Her gaze fell on Knuckles. It could not possibly have been him or the girl earlier, could it? Judging by their appearances and this run-down hut, which Rouge roughly assumed, their home, they were not the technological savvy type. Furthermore, they were just as confused as she was as the male echidna was demanding for an explanation or an answer from her, which she either did not have or simply refused to answer.

She tried putting two and two together. If what the red echidna said was true, he must have been the one who took her in and treated her wounds. Yet, this clearly did not strike her as a sincere action as he started questioning her like she was a criminal. There were a lot of questions running through her head that were desperate in need for answers. Like, why did the red echidna call her a thief? And, how did he find her? However, she chose to remain cautious. The fact that the red Mobian had taken the green Chaos Emerald from her while she was still unconscious was enough to convince her that he was not the type that she would put her thrust on.

"What did you do to me while I was unconscious?" she asked cynically as she eyed on the red Mobian cautiously. "I don't suppose it's anything modest."

The comment sent the red echidna yelling. "For your information, batgirl, it was not me who treated your wounds. I merely found you and brought you here. I did nothing of the sort!"

"Oh, really?" Rouge challenged. "How do you explain THIS then?" She held out her tied hands and showed him what she meant.

For a brief moment, Knuckles remained silent. He took in a deep breath and heaved, sighing as he tried finding a proper way to explain all of this. "I don't suppose you are aware that a green Chaos Emerald has been reported missing just a mere few hours ago. How would you explain having it under your possession?"

Nack… Rouge thought – her eyes hardened like a rock. But, she merely said, "I just told you, I got it from someone."

"And who would that be?"

Unbeknownst to the red echidna, he was heading to a dangerously sensitive issue for Rouge. She did not want to talk about it. She really did not. For a brief moment, she hesitated a little but she quickly hardened her eyes and gave Knuckles a scowl. "Why is it you are so concerned over this matter?" Rouge suddenly asked, abruptly raising her voice with an impatient and irritated tone to it.

"This is important," the red echidna urgently said, pulling himself nearer to Rouge as he sat back down on his chair. "I need to know who is behind this."

The answer he gave her disappointed her. Important? Was that all he could think of? "For a tough guy like you," she angrily commented. "You don't have much of a brain, do you?"

But the red echidna remained silent as he crossed his arms and gave her a serious frown. There was a sudden wind of change to Rouge's attitude as she gave Knuckles a flirting look to his face. "You want answers?" she playfully asked as she moved closer to him.

For a brief moment, none of them moved. Knuckles retained his stony composure and said nothing, though Rouge could tell that the male Mobian was blushing as she saw a slight tint of a pinkish tone on his peach-coloured cheeks. He tried not to make an eye to eye contact with her but the bat tilted her head to his face to grab his attention back on her. They were close, each could hear the other's own heavy breathing but Knuckles did not backtrack.

Heh, Rouge smirked to herself. She must admit, the red echidna got guts, though not as clever as he would have looked.

"Here is my answer!"Suddenly, without warning, Rouge spat on the red echidna's eyes, sending him yelling in rage. He closed his eyes and huffed around as he tried rubbing the blindness off his eyes. As a result, the chair lost its balance, tripping the red Mobian's off of it and crashed onto the floor with a loud thud.

Quickly, Rouge, ignoring the pain at her stomach, moved her hands to the tip of her boots and used their sharp edges to cut the rope. Once free, she used her hands to untie her legs. Her ears perked up as she heard the door of the room pushed open, revealing the vermillion echidna with a bucket of water on her right hand entering the room. Swiftly, Rouge moved to the door, pushing a surprised Tikal out of the way and exited. The bucket of water slipped off the vermillion echidna's hands. It dropped to the floor, spilling water all over the mats.

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Anger. That was all he could feel right now. Fury. He felt like he wanted to punch something, anything! He growled menacingly, holding his breath as rage began to build within him.

"Knuckles," he heard Tikal said as she held his left arm and helped him up from his embarrassing fall. "Are you alright?"

Without thinking, he angrily pulled his arm away from the female echidna and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Why that no good, ungrateful stubborn bat! She deserves a pounding in her head!"

He burst out of the door and yelled, "Get back here, batgirl!" cracking his knuckles as he craved to punch the lights out of the thief. Normally, he would not dare challenging, let alone touch, girls unnecessarily but the sly bat was seriously pushing it way too far. Never, in his life, never, had he felt so insulted.

Yet, when he saw Rouge lying on a dirt road nearby, mourning in pain, his anger quickly subsided. He quickly took pity on the white bat. Apparently, she was not able to run as far as she would have liked. Her pain was far too much for her to handle and she crumbled to the ground, wincing and clutching to her stomach tightly. Rain continued to pour down from the night sky above and her white fur, which Tikal had spent quite a while cleaning with a wet towel, became muddy and soaked.

A strong sense of remorse gripped his heart. Maybe… just maybe… he should have listened…

It was only a mere hour ago when he had decided to bring the bat girl back to his hut for Tikal to treat her wounds. While the female echidna was busy bandaging the bat's injuries, the green Chaos Emerald had by accident fell out the bat's pocket. Alarmed with the unexpected discovery, Tikal had brought the Chaos Emerald to Knuckles to examine. Remembering the missing green gem that Sonic had just reported to him a couple of hours ago, Knuckles became rather suspicious regarding the whole situation, suspecting that the injured victim was somehow involved in this and he had bounded her hands and legs for safety measures. The unnatural cause to the landslide. The sudden appearance of an injured victim on his island. The missing emerald. None of these made sense and he wanted answers.

He supposed that he had been far too impatient with her. It had been a long night and he was starting to feel quite cranky due to his lack of sleep.

Shaking his head, he went up to her and held out his left palm. "Need a hand?"

But Rouge stubbornly pushed it away and angrily said, "Keep your hands to yourself! Don't touch me!"

He took in a deep breath and sighed to himself in silence. It felt tempting to argue but he was far too tired to think anymore. How long had he been awake? Was it close to dawn? He did what he thought would be the easiest way to convince her. "Suit yourself," he monotonously said, shrugging as he turned around and slowly made his way back to the hut.

"Idiot!" came an angry shout behind him. "Are you that heartless to just leave me here?"

He stopped his pace and looked back. "Make up your mind, batgirl! Do you need my help or not?"

Her teeth clenched a little and her fists grasped the ground tightly. After a brief moment, she closed her eyes and turned her head away from him, biting her lower lip as she slowly and hesitantly lifted her right hand. Nodding to himself, Knuckles walked up to Rouge and knelt down beside her.

As he gently pulled her close to him, he asked her to put her arms around his neck on his left side. She did as she was instructed, feeling a strange, slightly ticklish sensation going across her stomach as the echidna wrapped his usable arm around her waist for better support. He never did notice the slight tint of a pinkish tone that went across her face and merely asked her to push her weight on him so he could help her to stand up. And so, they walked, with Rouge partially leaning on the red echidna for support.

As they staggered under the rain, Knuckles smirked a little. His action did not please Rouge one bit. "What is so funny?" she asked, frowning.

"I don't think I have met anyone who is as stubborn as you," Knuckles explained.

"Geesh, is that a compliment or an insult?"

He was not sure if the bat girl was aware of this but he personally thought that her idea of tackling him and rushing out of the hut with some extremely bad injuries that could do nothing but harm her was both suicidal and silly. Yet, the red echidna must admit, she got guts.

His small smile eventually dissipated and his face became unreadable. The two mammals fell flat into a deaf silence. Each of them was unable to say anything else to the other.

A couple of minutes later, he felt a force pulling him down on his left side. Turning his gaze to his left, he saw Rouge collapsing back to the ground and winced, tightly clutching onto her stomach with her hands.

"Here," said Knuckles as he knelt down in front of her and patted his left hand on his shoulder. "Climb onto my back."

At first, she hesitated. "Are you sure?"

He nodded his head in confidence. "Yes,"

Her gaze fell onto his right arm. "What about your injured arm?"

"Just do it."

Using her remaining strength and ignoring the pain in her stomach as much as she could, she staggered up his back and wrapped her hands around his neck. Knuckles himself locked his arms to Rouge's legs and mustered up his muscle to pull himself up. The extra weight on his back was not a problem for him, thanks to his special talent that he liked to call, 'strength', though he would still winced whenever he felt the extra weight pushing onto his right arm. Although he would not admit it, he was afraid that what Tikal said was right. He might have developed a fracture.

From a nearby window, Tikal saw everything. She shook her head in silence, smiling to herself, as she took her gaze away from the scene outside and concentrated on her own work. Kneeling down, she grabbed a sponge and began drying the wet floor. It had been a long night.

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As dawn drew near, the rain gradually came to a slow halt. A soft, salty breeze that came from the sea blew over the moving treetops in Angel Island and carried the heavy clouds above to the mainland, revealing the rising sun, which beamed over the ancient stones of a Mayan pyramid shrine. The large green gem that kept the island afloat glittered alluringly from its altar at the top of the stone shrine, accompanied with five smaller brilliant cut emeralds with shining colours of red, blue, yellow, cyan and magenta respectively floating above it in a circular fashion. Six ancient pillars that once supported the missing roof of the shrine surrounded the altar. A shallow pool, filled with fresh, clean rainwater, which it had collected during the pouring rain the previous night, surrounded the base. Its surface sparkled as it reflected the orangey ray of the rising sun.

A thick lust rainforest surrounded the mystical shrine. Across the dense forest floor, colourful butterflies, buzzing bees and a couple of green humming birds fluttered in and out of the blossoming flowers, ranging from fresh, sweet-smelling, common bluebells to giant, deep red, hibiscus plants. In the deeper part of the jungle, a handful of chao, rickies and flickies were seen playing in a natural shallow pool with a small waterfall gushing out of a rocky cliff. Their tiny shrieks and playful screams echoed throughout the forest air. Most of them were swimming in the fresh clear water pool, sputtering and splashing water on one another. Two rickies perched on a tiny tree branch nearby fighting over the last acorn in the tree while one blue flicky hopped around as it chased a fluttering yellow butterfly beneath the green ferns of the forest floor.

As it happily hopped around with its eyes failing to pay heed on its surrounding area, it carelessly bumped onto an obstacle and it rolled across the ground in surprised. Its vision became woozy. Shaking its head, it looked up and saw a tall red echidna plucking a handful of grapes out from a vine and throwing it into a basket of fruits in front of the flicky. Flapping its wings, the flicky flew over the basket and perched on the edge. Its greedy eyes fell on the various tropical fruits inside; deep yellow bananas, orange mangoes, large honeydews, sweet mangosteens, tiny seedless grapes and a couple of fresh green coconuts.

"Are you hungry?"

Its eyes caught on the red echidna, who was bending to its level as he eyed its hungry face. Chuckling to himself, Knuckles held out a tiny grape in front of the flicky and let go of his grasp as the bird quickly gobbled up the fruit. The tiny animal happily chirped as it flew to him and perched on his right shoulder. Standing up, Knuckles grabbed the basket and walked to the nearby pool.

There, he placed his basket down and rested. He took off his shoes and walked to the water, feeling the gushing cool water touching his feet. Upon seeing its playful comrades, the blue flicky quickly jumped off the echidna's shoulder and swam to the group. A small smile spread across the echidna's face as he watched the flicky's friends greeting it and sputtering water on the poor bird. Closing his eyes, Knuckles took in the fresh air as he listened attentively to the peaceful forest hums and echoes.

It was a nice change in terms of the weather, especially during this time of year when sunny days were rare and far in-between. Admiring his natural home was only one of the few things that the echidna could do to distract himself from his never-ending responsibilities and worries as a guardian.

Opening his eyes, Knuckles dipped his head into the cool water to freshen his mind. He held up his face and sighed. Playful shrieks and screams entered his ears as he watched the young animals playing in the pool. There were times when he would envy their carefree nature.

He got out of the water and wore back his shoes. Grasping the basket of fruits with his left hand, the red echidna walked back to the hut.

It was a simple wooden hut that Knuckles had built for himself years ago. Its roof was made of tightly bounded dried coconut leaves and its wall consisted of thick fiber tree trunks. Most of the furniture inside were echidna-made as well; the stony bed with a home-made mattress sewn together with animal fur, the wooden carved table and chairs, wax candles, etc. There was only one room in this entire shed with a single door leading out to the dirt road outside and it did not appear to be sturdy but it was more than enough for him as all he needed was a roof under his head.

As he opened the door, he was warmly greeted by the smiling face of a female echidna, who gladly took the rattan-made basket from him and began cutting or peeling some of the fruits. Knuckles himself dug into the basket and took out the bigger coconut of the two inside and sliced off its top with a sharp blade, revealing the sticky water inside and its smooth white flesh. His gaze caught onto the female bat, who laid on the stony bed beside the window with her back sitting up, paying no heed on either of the echidnas.

He walked up to her and asked, "Slept well?"

Glancing to her right, Rouge crossed her arms and gave the echidna a slight frown. "No," she said flatly. "Some hospitality. I felt like I was sleeping on a rock!"

But, the red echidna merely smirked. "Swallow that pride of yours, batgirl. After what happened last night, I would rather keep myself quiet if I were you."

"Hmph." She angrily turned her head away from the red guardian and looked at the waving trees outside the window.

Shaking his head, Knuckles sat on the other end of the bed and said, "I'm sure you are thirsty. Here. Drink this."

Her gaze fell on the strange spherical fruit that the echidna was offering her. It was green in colour and its husk looked hard but inside, she saw fresh, clear water with a bit of its soft white flesh, sticking to the brown layer of the inner shell. "What is that?" she asked. Although she admittedly was thirsty, she was quite reluctant in accepting an unusual fruit from a complete stranger.

"It's a coconut," Knuckles carefully explained. "It is a common fruit here. I'm sure you'll like it. It has a refreshing feel to it."

"Is it bitter?"

"Just try it," said the echidna as he held it nearer to the bat.

Biting her lower lip, Rouge accepted the fruit with both her hands and took a sip from it. She slightly frowned as the taste of the water entered her mouth. Initially, it tasted... bizarre… but it eventually melted in her mouth, leaving a milky tingling sensation to her tongue. It felt cool with a bit of sweetness to it, quenching her burning throat. "Not bad," she commented, noticing a soft smile in the echidna's face. Honestly though, she could not say if she liked it but it was enough to satisfy her thirst.

"Here," said the echidna as he handed Rouge a wooden spoon. "Use it to dig that white flesh out."

She did as what she was told and tasted it when she saw Knuckles pointing his finger to his mouth. The taste of the coconut flesh was almost similar to the sticky water, but that milky sweetness was stronger. Again, she was not sure if she liked the taste. It was far too different from the usual kind of fruits she had such as apples and oranges. Deciding that she had enough, she left the spoon in the coconut and drank the water instead.

"Okay, batgirl," said the red echidna. The tone of his voice changed quickly. "I can't hold my curiosity any longer. I want to know. How did you come here?"

This again? She sighed to herself and moaned, "Don't you ever give a girl a break?"

"I just want to know the whole truth," she heard him said. "This concerns both the emeralds and my island."

"Is it that important?" she asked.

But the red echidna remained silent and retained his serious look.

Shaking her head, Rouge closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers against her forehead. How was she going to explain all of this to him? She supposed that the red Mobian deserved knowing what was going on, or at least, the base of it – after all, she still OWED him her life, whether she liked it or not. Besides, this might also help her dig out some new information from him to get the full picture of what was really going on. Yet, she could not possibly tell him everything, specifically the reason why she was in Angel Island in the first place.

Finally, she heaved a sigh and said, "Call me Rouge. Rouge the Bat." It was a risky choice but at this moment, she simply decided to play by the cards. There was not much else she could do, given her current state. "To answer that ridiculous question of yours…" Rouge explained as she opened her eyes and stared at the red Mobian with a cool, hard face. "It isn't too hard to realize that I actually flew here."

"Judging by your severe injuries and all," she heard him said. "I don't suppose it had been a smooth ride."

"I was attacked by a flying robot when I got here and it knocked me unconscious."

"Robot?" asked Knuckles. His face tensed and his voice became lower and gruffer. "How does it look like?"

"Big and animal-like, almost resembling the shape of a bee. It has a pair of glowing red eyes and two rocket blasters on each of its side."

"A buzzbomber…" Knuckles trailed off.

"Buzzbomber?" he heard Rouge said. "Is that what you call it?"

But the echidna paid no heed to her question. His mind wandered off as he tried figuring what was going on. Buzzbomber… There was no one else on Mobius the red echidna knew, who was capable enough to build this badnik. It could not have been Robotnik, could it? What was the old fart up to? Did that missing green emerald had anything to do with him? Come to think about it, it did make sense if Robotnik was behind all of this. He was the only possible candidate that the red echidna could think of right now, who was capable enough to break through the security line in Tails' workshop. There was no one else he knew who rivaled the kid's mechanical geniuses.

Yet, there was a strong loophole in his theory. If Robotnik was the one behind the stolen emerald, how did the bat girl managed to get her hands on it? According to her story, she received the gem from someone. Yet, it just did not seem to make sense for Robotnik to give his emerald away to anyone. There was only one possible explanation to this…

"Why were you attacked?"

"That is what I want to know," Rouge said. "You mentioned that the emerald was reported missing several hours ago. I know nothing of that."

"Don't you think it is possible that the emerald was stolen, twice?" the red echidna said cynically, folding his arms as he gave Rouge a cold stare. "It would have make sense as to why you were attacked."

There was no immediate answer from her. Rouge hardened her eyes as she glared at Knuckles callously. Fancy of that. The red guardian was suspecting her again but she calmly said, "Would you care to elaborate what you mean?"

The echidna stood up. "This emerald," he said as he took the green gem out off his glove and held it in front of Rouge. "…was cautiously guarded by one of the highest security bases in the mainland." If he would count one hyperactive hedgehog and one measly prototype shield in a rundown workshop as that… "Despite that, the culprit was able to hack through the security line and steal the emerald. I suspect when that happened, a third party came in and stole the missing gem. The culprit must have wanted his precious gem back and have sent his robot after the thief."

Though as far-fetched as the explanation sounded, Rouge admitted that it did help to explain one thing; it was not Nack who was behind the attack. It was possible that the culprit who penetrated whatever base the echidna mentioned was the same person who sent the buzzbomber after her. Nack merely was the third party behind all of this. Yet, it did bug her to realize that something was up. What was the weasel up to?

Snapping her thoughts out of her mind, Rouge focused her attention back on the current topic. "Would I be the one to define your category as the thief?" she asked.

"What do you think?"

The bat smirked. "I applause you for your creativity. As logical as it is, I do find a hole in that theory of yours."

"What sort of hole?" asked the red echidna as he cocked his eye in suspicion.

"If the culprit behind the stolen gem is indeed responsible for the burglary," she explained. "Why didn't he take back the emerald from me? Surely, I wasn't in any condition to fight at all when you found me lying on the ground like that."

There was no immediate response from him. The red echidna remained silent and his expression became unreadable. Damn. The bat girl was right. How could he have missed that?

Turning his gaze back on her, Knuckles reluctantly asked, "How would you explain it then?"

"As far as the buzzbomber is concerned, I really don't know," Rouge smirked. "Maybe, the machine itself has malfunctioned and is randomly attacking Mobians for no special reason. How would you explain the reason why it left the emerald alone when it had the chance to take it?"

Knuckles' nodded slowly to himself. Her explanation made sense as he briefly recalled his short encounter with the two badniks last night in Hydrocity. Had it been just a simple case of one of the old Robotnik's badnik that continued lurking around in his island?

"I know nothing about the burglary you talked about," Rouge continued. "I don't even know what this fuss is all about. All I know is that I got the emerald from someone."

Her statement reminded him of the question he had asked her before. He hoped that she was willing enough to give him a direct answer this time. "And who would this 'generous' person be?"

"Haven't I told you? I'm an archeologist."

"An archeologist? What is that got to do with anything?"

"I specialize in the field of echidna histories," Rouge replied, noticing the surprised look to the guardian's face. Her sly smirk widened. "I know a lot about the Chaos Emeralds. That's the reason why I came here in the first place. I heard that there are a lot of echidna murals here and I wish to study them."

What? An archeologist? Who specialized in the echidna history? As much as he wanted to believe her, Knuckles doubted what she said was the complete truth. It was a rare case for anyone who came to his island for a different reason. Most of the past thieves or intruders, who came here, had merely been interested in his Master Emerald. Admittedly, he wanted to see how much the bat knew. Finally, he asked, "Who was the founder of the Mayan civilization?"

"K'inich." The tone of her voice sounded confident and calm. "K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', who had not only founded the first Mayan civilization, Copan, but he also became its first leader, at the mere age of 17."

"How many echidna tribes were there in the past?"

"Three, Incans, Mayans, and Aztecs." Admittedly, her knowledge in the echidna history had been quite an unintentional one. She never was interested in learning the origin of the echidnas. But, the story behind the Master Emerald held so close to the echidna history that it was near impossible for Rouge to avoid it. Seemed though, the useless junk she often read about was coming to a good use. Knuckles was close in believing her story. "Judging by your appearances," she continued. "…you and the girl right there must be the descendants of the Mayan race. Your dreadlocks are not as long as the other echidna tribes and your fur aren't white like the Incans, nor blue or purple like the Aztecs. Besides that, only the Mayan male echidnas have those big fists with spikes on their knuckles like yours. Though I must admit, you are pretty unusual in a sense…."

"Unusual?" Knuckles gritted his teeth. He did not know why but her statement annoyed him. "In what sense?"

"I don't know. That white crescent moon on you chest? Honestly, I don't think I have seen or read any other echidnas having that sort of physical trait before. Does that hold any special meaning at all?"

"That's the symbol of my guardianship."

"Guardianship?"

"It's…" The red echidna stopped, realizing that their conversation was straying off from its original topic. "What does the emerald have anything to do with this?" he yelled. "You still haven't explained to me why you have it in your hands in the first place."

"Knucklehead," Rouge said, crossing her arms as she looked at him in a bored expression. "I just told you. I don't just study the echidna history, I also study the Chaos Emeralds. How do you expect me to study the Chaos Emeralds without a Chaos Emerald, hmm?"

He was getting quite impatient with her. The conversation was going nowhere… "But…" He said between gritted teeth. "Who gave you that emerald?"

But, his intimidating glare did not faze her. Instead, Rouge gave him a playful smirk. "Persistent, aren't you?" she teased. "How many times are you going to ask me that question?"

"Just answer it!"

A brief silence crept between them. Finally, sighing, Rouge muttered, "An old friend. He was a treasure hunter once. We used to work together."

"What's his name?"

Her face hardened. She should not be telling him the complete truth, should she? Finally, Rouge murmured, "Fang…"

"And how did Fang get his hold on the green emerald?"

_That does it._ Frowning, she stared impatiently at Knuckles and growled, "You can't expect me to know everything, echidna. I just got the emerald from him. That's it. End of story." She looked away in a huff and crossed her arms.

Knuckles remained silent. Although her story had sounded convincing enough, he was not sure if he should be thrusting her. There were a few questions that had been left unanswered. The facts were not complete, at all. He still was not sure who was responsible for the burglary in Tails' workshop, nor was he certain how the emerald somehow managed to travel from the Mystic Ruins all the way to his hands. And what about the buzzbomber that attacked Rouge hours ago? Did it have any connection to the missing emerald at all? Or was it just a random badnik as what the bat girl had suggested? None of this made sense!

He sighed silently to himself. This was all so confusing. Maybe, he should stop thinking altogether for a while and just wait to see how things unfold.

Finally, he tossed the green emerald to the bat girl, who caught it with both her hands and looked at him in surprised.

"What?"

"Take it," he said. "You can remain here under my watch to carry out whatever research that you mentioned. But, as soon as you are healed, I want you to leave this leave island. Pronto."

A small smile spread across Rouge's face. This was going much smoother than she had anticipated. She nodded firmly and said, "Understood."

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End file.
